Draft:Mark Steele

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Mark Steele at Trafalgar Square

Mark Steele (1960–) is a British conspiracy theorist, politician, noted racist and fraudster.

Background

Steele was raised in Gateshead, Northumberland where he was employed as a night club bouncer. In September 1993, he was arrested and charged with Grievous Bodily Harm after shooting a 19-year-old girl in the head during a confrontation, for which he served an eight-year sentence. In the time since his release from prison he has since disassociated himself from his previous life and taken on a new identity of a retired engineer for a Ministry of Defense weapons contractor specializing in directed-energy weapons.

5G activism and COVID-19

Steele became active in conspiracy theory circles in 2008 when he began publishing blogs accusing Gateshead Council of installing experimental 5G components into street lamps, leading to an apparent rise in cancers and nose bleeds as a result. Through the use of Facebook pages catering to an older, reactionary demographic, Steele was able to amass almost £30,000 in two separate campaigns. Steele gained prominence in the area for his harassment of councilors to the point of being restricted by a court order, which he would break in 2018 leading to a conviction. Among the more sympathetic audiences of Steele outside of Facebook was the Democrats and Veterans Party, an off-shoot of UKIP.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Steele became more active in his anti-5G activism, co-opting David Icke's conspiracy theory that the disease was caused by 5G masts and not a virus. His theory therefore changed from protesting the unsafe testing of harmful technologies to claiming China was orchestrating a genocide through the use of 5G. Steele also became a regular feature at anti-lockdown protests, appearing at a rally in Glasgow in September 2020, where he claimed to have raised tens of thousands for anti-mask causes without evidence. His involvement with Kate Shemirani for the Resist and Act for Freedom movement led to him losing favour among other conspiracy theorists who saw him as controlled opposition.

Anti-ULEZ hysteria

In 2023, London's Ultra Low Emission Zone was expanded to cover all 32 London boroughs, which would require a £12.50 charge for driving in London in a vehicle deemed below emission standards (with exceptions). This itself kicked-off a range of protests co-opted by far-right elements around the country as part of the 15-minute city conspiracy theory. Steele himself made repeated allegations that the cameras utilized by ULEZ, along with similar cameras in other councils (Gateshead naturally included) are in fact energy weapons. During one video he alleged that cameras were specifically being placed around majority-white neighborhoods.